Same sex attraction. Should it be stopped? (Page 53)

Page 53 of 54

return_to_hadesIF-Sizzlerz

^^ I dont think anyone calls AIDS a homosexual disease but it is a fact that the incidence of AIDS is higher in homos as compared to the heteros . They had been included under high risk group as far as blood donor screening criteria went but objections were raised by the LGBTS calling it discriminatory. No clear policy guidelines yet regarding this. Since the HIV or AIDS virus can spread through blood this is of concern. The foll. article may give some idea regarding the statistics.

While we may not explicitly conclude that AIDS is an African or say Indian disease there are regulations in place to screen travellers to endemic places for certain viral markers including HIV , yellow fever virus etc. Indian hospitals generally try and avoid blood donors from African countries. The US defers people who have visited malaria endemic zones like India and mexico from donating blood for a period of 3 years. I dont think anyone takes offense for these as these are simply precautionary measures put in place to cut down the risk of spread of a disease.

calling any well meant move as discriminatory is being paranoid and hypersensitive . The policy makers should analyse these facts in an objective manner without buckling to pressure.

Angie, I would not deny the high concentration of AIDS in gay men. That is a fact. I think gay men have to accept that they have a problematic concentration of HIV+.

However, when people think of AIDS and homosexuality, they forget other facts. The situation is better than the late eighties and nineties, when the epidemic exploded. People are more cautious now. Majority of the new infection is in the 13-29 age group. A lot of it is teenagers, college bound men or people just coming out. They have not been educated about sex, definitely not gay sex and hesitate to ask parents or teachers about it. They instead rely on friends, random partners. It is also significantly in the black community which suffers from other economic and social issues.

So much more than a culture or population causing AIDS, it is the product of- Lack of education- Lack of information- Lack of resources- Lack of support

Gay youth suffer from the lack of all this. The situation is same in rural India, Africa, parts of Eastern Europe etc. The only way to prevent AIDS is reach out to people, teach them how it spreads, how to prevent it and give them access to resources and support for their sexual health. Until gay youth have equal access to all this without fear, it becomes very challenging to control this within their community.

Also people also fail to realize that LGBT is a broad spectrum. AIDS is concentrated in men on men sex. Transmittal of AIDS from oral or non penetrative sex is very rare. So on the other side of the spectrum, the lesbian population actually has the lowest concentration of not just AIDS, but they are the lowest in most STD as well.

As for blood donations. I personally don't care if they consider gay people high risk or foreigners ineligible. What bothers me is people can lie and you never know what someone is carrying. These categories are pointless. All blood is actually supposed to be stringently tested before transfusion. I would hope that they treat all blood like it could be contaminated and test for stuff. I do hope they don't say "Hey this is straight white American blood, we don't need to test as much" and then pass on bad blood. Although, I don't know the science of blood, so I hope the doctors know what they are doing.

_Angie_IF-Sizzlerz

So much more than a culture or population causing AIDS, it is the product of- Lack of education- Lack of information- Lack of resources- Lack of support

Gay youth suffer from the lack of all this. The situation is same in rural India, Africa, parts of Eastern Europe etc.

These constraints can be understood in India or Africa but I don't see any particular reason why the gay youth should have these constraints! The high prevalence rates amongst MSM is universally observed irrespective of their belonging to an under developed or a developed nation. The fact that MSM have a higher incidence should be recognised and accepted by them so that they can adopt control measures.

Originally posted by return_to_hades

Also people also fail to realize that LGBT is a broad spectrum. AIDS is concentrated in men on men sex. Transmittal of AIDS from oral or non penetrative sex is very rare. So on the other side of the spectrum, the lesbian population actually has the lowest concentration of not just AIDS, but they are the lowest in most STD as well.

That's right.It's the MSM that are more at risk. Unprotected penetrative sex & greater chances of injury along with lack of awareness regarding the risks involved are contributory factors along with the reasons you cited above.

Originally posted by return_to_hades

As for blood donations. I personally don't care if they consider gay people high risk or foreigners ineligible.

But some of them do care and protest as they feel it a discriminatory practice. Even the media and some supporters.

Originally posted by return_to_hades

What bothers me is people can lie and you never know what someone is carrying. These categories are pointless. All blood is actually supposed to be stringently tested before transfusion. I would hope that they treat all blood like it could be contaminated and test for stuff. I do hope they don't say "Hey this is straight white American blood, we don't need to test as much" and then pass on bad blood. Although, I don't know the science of blood, so I hope the doctors know what they are doing.

Medical history taking depends to a large extent on a person providing true information.

The categories are not pointless when you consider the fact that no test in the world (yes not even in the devp US) at present has a test that is 100% fool proof in detecting a HIV + person who can pass on the infection! So it makes sense to screen out the high risk groups. Its something similar to the US authorities applying more stringent screening procedures as far as Muslims travellers were concerned at their airports in the aftermath of the WTC incident. Many Indians too faced these special scrutinies but put up with it as a part of well intended security measure. The tests employed and consumables used are pretty expensive along with the time and manpower that would be required for avoidable tests ; so it appears justifiable to screen out high risk groups.

This is also important because of the window period ie the period when the viral load is too small to be detected in the blood samples subjected to the Rapid/ELISA or NAT tests but capable of transmitting the infection when the blood unit gets transfused. Here medical history and behavioural history taking assumes significance.

The stigmatisation of the high risk group needs to be eliminated so that it becomes possible to identify and reach them in order to promote safe practices and thereby control the spread of this dreaded disease. That would be in the interest of society at large and people need to understand that.

return_to_hadesIF-Sizzlerz

Angie, that is a common misunderstanding. People assume that
gay men have no reason to be susceptible and blame their homosexuality for
AIDS. People fail to realize that homosexuals usually tend to be minorities,
for the longest time they were not just minorities but persecuted minorities. Even
in a so called advanced country like USA, homosexuality is a taboo in most of
the country. There is absolutely no education or information available to
homosexual teens and youth. They also lack social support from family and
peers. Due to this gay youth experiment a lot more that straight youth and
expose themselves to more risk.

Even throughout their lives, many are closeted and not out
except to a close circle. Many are afraid to discuss their sexual health with
doctors and seek advice, screening etc as a gay individual. Since homosexuality
is also socially frowned upon, many people find it difficult to form long
lasting committed relationships and end up having multiple partners.

With more gay oriented sex education, nonprofit health
groups serving the gay community, internet support lines as well as social
support and rights – gay youth are more informed and well educated when they
start sexual activity, they are more aware of health concerns, and have the
social support to form more stable relationships. If you study the
concentration of AIDS in gay men, its much lower in countries that have been
progressive towards homosexuality. It varies significantly based on the outlook
the community has towards gay people.

We should also remember that does not equal causation. Gay men have high
concentration of AIDS, but homosexuality does not cause or increase the risk of
AIDS. AIDS is always the result of unprotected sex or Iv drug usage. While I
understand why it is prudent to put gay men as high risk for blood donation,
the reason gay people oppose that is because such restrictions imply
correlation is causation. With the case geographical restrictions on blood, the
geographical location and the water, flora, fauna of the region is known to
cause blood borne pathogens and disease.
An American who visits the Congo gets a quarantine period and a Nigerian
born and brought up in USA is deemed low-risk. The discrimination is based on
actual causation. However, homosexuality does not cause AIDS or STD, which is
why gay people tend to object to the restrictions placed. Although I do understand
the health implications and this discrimination maybe the most practical way to
manage risk.

_Angie_IF-Sizzlerz

Angie, that is a common misunderstanding. People assume that gay men have no reason to be susceptible and blame their homosexuality for AIDS.

For any disease to occur it needs an interaction of the triad of agent , host and environment . Here the agent is the HIV virus, host is the patient and environment includes the whole gamut of conditions leading to their coming together

People fail to realize that homosexuals usually tend to be minorities, for the longest time they were not just minorities but persecuted minorities. Even in a so called advanced country like USA, homosexuality is a taboo in most of the country. There is absolutely no education or information available to homosexual teens and youth.

Not only the youth Sarina, but also the grown ups!

They also lack social support from family and peers.

Peers are known to jeer and bully at the slightest pretext. Nothing new in that. But its deplorable when family members forsake each other. It defeats one of the main purpose of a family when they do that.

Due to this gay youth experiment a lot more that straight youth and expose themselves to more risk. Even throughout their lives, many are closeted and not out except to a close circle. Many are afraid to discuss their sexual health with doctors and seek advice, screening etc as a gay individual. Since homosexuality is also socially frowned upon, many people find it difficult to form long lasting committed relationships and end up having multiple partners.

Very well thought out!

With more gay oriented sex education, nonprofit health groups serving the gay community, internet support lines as well as social support and rights ' gay youth are more informed and well educated when they start sexual activity, they are more aware of health concerns, and have the social support to form more stable relationships. If you study the concentration of AIDS in gay men, its much lower in countries that have been progressive towards homosexuality. It varies significantly based on the outlook the community has towards gay people.

We should also remember that does not cause equal causation. Gay men have high concentration of AIDS, but homosexuality does not cause or increase the risk of AIDS. AIDS is always the result of unprotected sex or Iv drug usage.

Causation is never a single factor and needs the interaction of a triad as I mentioned above. Its very common for people to mix up causation and correlation and use them interchangeably. For eg. wrt the statement in bold by you - IV drug usage by itself will not result in spread of the disease but re-usinginfected needles would. You know it and yet you ascribed IV drug use as resulting in AIDS. Similar the case with unprotected sex. Technically speaking the cause would be "unprotected sex with an HIV infected person" .One could also argue on the definition of protected sex and so on. The ultimate could be to lay the blame on the patients own immune system for not having fought against the virus.

While I understand why it is prudent to put gay men as high risk for blood donation, the reason gay people oppose that is because such restrictions imply correlation is causation. With the case geographical restrictions on blood, the geographical location and the water, flora, fauna of the region is known to cause blood borne pathogens and disease. An American who visits the Congo gets a quarantine period and a Nigerian born and brought up in USA is deemed low-risk. The discrimination is based on actual causation. However, homosexuality does not cause AIDS or STD, which is why gay people tend to object to the restrictions placed.

I see a flaw in the differential conclusion drawn above A geographical location has been ascribed causation but not homosexuality inspite of accepting the fact of a high conc of AIDS in the homosexuals. Extending the same reasoning applied to homosexuals -the flora , fauna, water of a place too ought to be excluded as causation as they too can be reasoned as being simply the possible vehicles of the disease causing germs and not the actual cause of the disease by themselves.. If one of them gets termed as causative agent so does the other by the same reasoning.As I said earlier there never is a single cause for anything. Its always a multitude of factors and each factor plays a contributory role. Yet the contributory factors get targeted universally.

Although I do understand the health implications and this discrimination maybe the most practical way to manage risk.

I would like to add that increasing awareness and empathy towards a problem definitely helps . Most people, adults included are quite ill informed about homosexuality and perhaps any sexuality for that matter. One can very well imagine the plight of the youth. The blame game never helped anyone. If everyone had an attitude of tolerance and acceptance of differences , it would have helped surmount almost every problem we face in the world today.

-Aarya-IF-Dazzler

The most serious disease that is threatening people in under-developed countries is AIDS. Approximately 40 million people worldwide are infected with HIV; over 30 million of them live in these countries. The number of people dying from the AIDS disease has been significantly reduced with the development of since life-saving medications. Thus some of these medicines cost up to 1000 USD! It's high time the government steps in to provide adequate medication rate (cheap) for these under-developed countries.

http://www.avert.org/aidsindia.htm

Which government are you talking about? And which under-developed countries? If treatment is this expensive prevention should be more stringent

To me, the subject of AID prevention vs treatment is a circular debate. Some people say we
need to shift away from treatment in favor of prevention. While some say that because treatment will only reach a fraction of those who need
it, while preventing new infections should be the central tenet of any long
term response to AIDs. As Albert Einstein said, the definition of insanity is doing the same
thing over and over again but expecting different results.
You can de-emphasizing AIDS treatment, as if it is somehow an alternative to
prevention, may not be insane, but re-hashing this old canard won't get
us too far. To me treatment is prevention!

_Angie_IF-Sizzlerz

^^ Aarya, once the person is already infected what do you expect to prevent!Death? For how long and what about the quality of life! Imagine a scenario where we choose to go for only treatment and no preventive measures. It will be a never ending task as new cases will keep emerging in the absence of any prevention. On the other hand imagine a different scenario where we focus only on prevention and no treatment. At worst the afflicted patients will all die but no more new cases of AIDS assuming we had a very effective preventive programme in place. Ideally we should go for a multi pronged attack to control the spread by creating awareness of the disease amongst the public, promotion of safe practices, easy accessibility to facilities for detection in early stage, treatment of confirmed cases with drugs at an affordable rate.

I don't see the Albert Einstein's quote fitting in here. Infact doing the preventive measure over and over might just be able to succeed in controlling the disease !

-Aarya-IF-Dazzler

^^ Aarya, once the person is already infected what do you expect to prevent!Death? For how long and what about the quality of life! Imagine a scenario where we choose to go for only treatment and no preventive measures. It will be a never ending task as new cases will keep emerging in the absence of any prevention. On the other hand imagine a different scenario where we focus only on prevention and no treatment. At worst the afflicted patients will all die but no more new cases of AIDS assuming we had a very effective preventive programme in place. Ideally we should go for a multi pronged attack to control the spread by creating awareness of the disease amongst the public, promotion of safe practices, easy accessibility to facilities for detection in early stage, treatment of confirmed cases with drugs at an affordable rate.

I don't see the Albert Einstein's quote fitting in here. Infact doing the preventive measure over and over might just be able to succeed in controlling the disease !

I agree that prevention and treatment go hand-in-hand, though my original question was on the cost of the treatment. Due to the lack of treatment (access to ARVs) in Africa the epidemic is wide spread. The availability of treatment encourages testing and knowing one's HIV status, the treatment is effective in halting the advancement of symptoms, and Treatment of those who tested positive can decreasing their risk of passing the
virus on. Thus the treatment cost is too large for the poor populated country.

_Angie_IF-Sizzlerz

^^ Aarya, once the person is already infected what do you expect to prevent!Death? For how long and what about the quality of life! Imagine a scenario where we choose to go for only treatment and no preventive measures. It will be a never ending task as new cases will keep emerging in the absence of any prevention. On the other hand imagine a different scenario where we focus only on prevention and no treatment. At worst the afflicted patients will all die but no more new cases of AIDS assuming we had a very effective preventive programme in place. Ideally we should go for a multi pronged attack to control the spread by creating awareness of the disease amongst the public, promotion of safe practices, easy accessibility to facilities for detection in early stage, treatment of confirmed cases with drugs at an affordable rate.

I don't see the Albert Einstein's quote fitting in here. Infact doing the preventive measure over and over might just be able to succeed in controlling the disease !

I agree that prevention and treatment go hand-in-hand, though my original question was on the cost of the treatment. Due to the lack of treatment (access to ARVs) in Africa the epidemic is wide spread. The availability of treatment encourages testing and knowing one's HIV status, the treatment is effective in halting the advancement of symptoms, and Treatment of those who tested positive can decreasing their risk of passing the virus on. Thus the treatment cost is too large for the poor populated country.

True! Lack of treatment would make people hesitant to get themselves checked and that could be a big drawback. But there is hope as India exports drugs to nearly 200 countries providing treatment to nearly 86% of the world's AIDS patients at a very low cost. Infact this week itself Michel Sidibe, Executive Director, UNAIDS, has acknowledged India's leadership as being critical to achieve the goal of "zero new infections, zero discrimination and zero deaths due to AIDS" to which the world leaders committed at the UN meet held in June.

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